


Irons

by daroos



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Barney Barton causing trouble, Food Porn, Found Family, Hawkeye & Hawkeye - Freeform, M/M, New love, Old Relationships, This fic will make you hungry, Wafflehouse AU, coffee shop AU, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2679716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Irons served everything waffle, in a remarkably successful marketing ploy from the early days when a confluence of their opening day and the great Midtown blackout meant the shop ran entirely on a backup generator."</p><p>This is the story of how Clint's waffleporium led to love and companions popping up in unexpected places, how family isn't always the best thing for your blood pressure, and how taking ownership doesn't have to be a chore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JBMcDragon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBMcDragon/gifts).



> The most amazing Thank You to Selori, who patiently, thoroughly, and wonderfully went through this fic and found all the points where my phrasing wasn't up to scratch, my English was shoddy, or I'd neglected something crucial grammatically. She is the best beta reader an author could ask for and I can't do enough to thank her properly. But thank you.

Clint stumbled down the stairs and walked on automatic to the espresso machine. He portioned out grounds, tamped them tight, and screwed the espresso group into the machine without opening his eyes. He opened his eyes just enough to fumble an espresso cup under the spigots before he pulled himself a double-shot. The ebb and flow of the shop in the morning washed over Clint, and the employees were familiar enough with the manager that they just moved around him, prepping food and handling the register, and didn’t ask anything of him.

He sat at the bar, next to a patron, and downed his espresso in a single gulp. Darcy had a cup of regular brew coffee for him when his hand began to flop around on the counter like a lost fish. By the time he was through the mug of coffee, his eyes were opening fully and even focusing on things.

“You want something to eat?” Darcy asked kindly. A businessman in a ubiquitous lower Manhattan suit sat next to him at the breakfast bar and seemed mostly amused by his breakfast compatriot. Clint gave the patron a dubious once-over, eyes running from the neatly buffed loafers to the plump, perky tie knot, and back down to a belt that matched the shoes.

“Yeah,” Clint groaned. “Bacon.”

“Coming up, bossman,” Darcy said. “Steve: one Noble Pig for Sleepyhawk.”

“Bossman?” business guy asked.

Clint nodded in the affirmative. “This here is my... waffleporium,” he finished.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just— What the hell time is it?”

Business guy looked at his business watch. “Seven ten,” he reported.

Clint groaned and mashed his face into the bar top. “Kate, why am I awake?”

The girl on the register shot him a disgusted look. “Hell if I know. Go back to bed if you’re such a miserable fuckup.”

“Language, Katertots,” Clint admonished, face still mashed on the bar top. 

Mr. Business ducked his own head so he could look into Clint’s face straight-on. “Late night?” he asked, actually sounding sympathetic.

Clint groaned something that might have contained the words “hipsters” and “xylophone”, and which ended in a whimper.

“Bossman closed last night,” Darcy said.

“Well, it’s been a pleasure,” the suit told Clint. “I’m not sure I could handle a breakfast this hearty every morning, but it was quite the treat.”

He moved out of Clint’s field of vision on his way out the door. Clint sat up abruptly. “Wait.” He stuck out his hand. “Clint,” he said. “Me. I’m—”

“Clint,” Sir Fancyslacks interrupted. “I got that. Phil.” He shook.

“No—”

“No? I assure you—”

“No, I meant to say, thanks for comin’. Glad to have your business.”

Phil’s crow’s-feet crinkled in an amused smile. “I’m glad I stopped by.” He glanced down at their still-clasped hands. Clint dropped the hand hastily.  
\--  
“Can I get just, like, breakfast?”

“As long as by ‘breakfast’ you mean ‘waffles’, then yes.” Clint stared down a pair of college-age girls in crop tops, his hands braced on the countertop, the muscles in his forearms bunched in an effort not to strangle either of the customers. They’d been whispering over the menu for ten minutes and hadn’t even ordered a coffee between them.

“What about just—”

“Waffles.” Clint cut them off. “We serve waffles. And drinks.” He glared. “Waffles,” he added for emphasis.

“I don’t feel like waffles,” the one girl said to the other. Clint made a shooing motion and they left.

Kate chewed on her straw, her hip hitched against the back counter. “Good call. They didn’t look like tippers.”

Clint shrugged, naturally contrary. “They looked a’right.” Kate rolled her eyes. “Hey, I been thinking: tapioca flour might do it for the gluten-free mix.”

“Think it’ll solve the crumb problem?”

Clint grunted in agreement.

“What’s the price point on that?” Kate asked. They debated gluten-free flour proportions until Stark rolled in. 

He circled his finger in a gesture Clint knew meant “The usual.”

“Anything for the lady?” Clint asked.

“Iced tea?” Pepper asked.

“Sure thing.” Clint nodded Kate towards the drinks while he went to pour the batter.

Irons served everything waffle, in a remarkably successful marketing ploy from the early days when a confluence of their opening day and the great Midtown blackout meant the shop ran entirely on a backup generator. Waffles topped with whipped cream and strawberries for the purists, gluten-free waffles topped with chunks of banana and splashes of peanut butter and chocolate syrup for the avant garde, croque-madame sweet-potato waffles with slices of ham and cheese baked right in and topped with a fried egg, and hash-waffles, waffle-tots, waffle sandwiches, waffle cones with ice cream in them, and even the rare Belgian waffle made with authentic pearl sugar and a jealously guarded batter recipe. 

Clint had been pleasantly surprised when the business survived more than a week, and when he hired his first full-time employee with health benefits and everything, the whole shop celebrated with cheap-ass sparkling wine. He still lived in the small flat above the business, never having moved from his early-days squatting. Stark had never said anything about his habitation of the upper floor, and it had led to a sort of silent truce between landlord and lessee.

Stark twitched his goatee at the register in a silent show of impatience or hunger. Clint rolled his eyes, forked the waffle out of the iron, layered on turkey and a squirt of mustard, and topped that with a second waffle to make a sandwich. 

Kate had finished the drinks and was chatting with Stark, probably about rich-people things. When she’d come into the shop with his hand-made help wanted sign under her arm, he’d been dubious. Her fingers were manicured, her sunglasses were designer, and she had that look -- the expression that rich people had when amongst the plebeians that said they knew they were better than the unwashed mass of humanity.

“No tourists in the ranks here,” he’d told her.

The tip of her tongue had poked out between her lips, accenting a sardonic, bitter smirk. “Let me show you a thing or two, waffle man.”

She’d elbowed him from behind the espresso machine and proceeded to pull the smoothest, most subtly earthy shot of espresso Clint had ever had out of his machine or those beans. Her shoulder had hitched up at him in an unspoken challenge.

“Can I rely on you to show up on time?” he’d asked. She’d nodded once. “We’ll find out soon enough, either way.”

Clint couldn’t say that he had expected the partnership that had formed, but it was one of the purely good things that had come out of his life in the last decade or so, so he didn’t question it.

“Kate-bit, why don’t you see if that gluten-free mix is as good in an iron as it sounds on paper.” She mock-saluted him and slouched off. “Posture!” he shouted after her, slouching into the spot she had occupied.

“How is everything?”

“Wonderful as always,” Pepper told him with one of her gentle smiles. She was an elven queen in her tailored business wear, with her delicate manners, and that always made Clint feel a little bit small. How she stood up to Stark’s personality was quite clear, but how she stood Stark himself was a mystery.

“Mmpfh,” Stark said, already buried face-first in his waffle sandwich. Pepper rolled her eyes at his manners.

“We’re really here because Tony has been avoiding reminding you about your business plan.” Pepper guided her ice tea’s straw to her mouth with french-tipped fingers.

Clint spread his arms wide to indicate the bar and kitchen. “Business. Plan,” he stated.

Pepper gave him a pointed, meaningful look. “I deal with this _genius_ ,” she said it in a way Clint was certain actually meant _doofus_ , “all day every day. Don’t make me ‘deal with’ you too.”

“Tony,” Clint whined. “You guys can just keep owning Irons and I can keep running it, and—”

“No,” Tony stated. He took off his sunglasses and set them aside.

Clint was brought up short. “No?”

“This place is your brainchild. If you weren’t here it would probably be some douchey hipster selling hemp scarves. You should own it.”

“How the hell am I gonna write a business plan?” Clint asked. He turned his plaintive expression on Pepper.

“I don’t expect you to do it alone. A friend of mine said he could help you get everything sorted out if you get your books together for him.”

“A friend?” 

“He’s kept an eye on Tony for me a few times when I couldn’t do it. You’ll like him, I think.”  
\--  
“I was thinking plantains might work: the really starchy ones, like.” Clint had his hip hitched against the counter, arms crossed, showing off his fine musculature.

Jasper gave him an incredulous look. “Have you ever worked with plantains?” Clint shook his head, his expression thoughtful while Jasper continued to talk. “I wouldn’t count on it. I mean, if it works, I shit you not, I will be in here for dinner every day my mammy won’t take me, but I’ve seen those things carbonize on the bottom of fry pans.” Jasper was the only one of his siblings still living near enough to visit their mother regularly, and she spoiled him as much as he spoiled her.

“I think it could work.” Clint scratched a few days’ growth of beard and it rasped. “Gimmie till Friday.” He glanced through to the back kitchen and frowned. “Steve? Steve! What’s going on back there, buddy? You just took the trash out like—”

“Nothing!” came Steve’s too-loud response. “Just— alley— We’re good.”

Clint exchanged a curious look with Jasper. He leaned back just enough to peer through the order-up window. Steve was tenderly probing the area around his left eye but stopped the moment he saw Clint looking, his hand dropping suspiciously quickly. Jasper leaned across the counter to stare with overt suspicion.

They remained in an awkward stare-off until Steve gave them a “you’re crazy” look and turned back to his work.

“Do I want to know?” Jasper asked quietly.

Clint shook his head and rolled his eyes. “If the rats out back have got big enough to throw punches, I prefer plausible deniability when the inspectors come by.”  
\--  
The thing was, it was really difficult to ignore the fact that Steve, the all-American Poster Boy for Freedom, Justice, and Apple Pie, had an epic shiner. Clint had had his fair share of hits to the face (both from straight-up fights and... less even odds) and that was a masterpiece of a black eye -- his left purpled and his right even showing a darkened shadow from what must have been one hell of a haymaker.

“Is there anything I should know about?” Clint tried asking, eyes squinted, hand scrubbing the back of his head where his hair was a bit too long and beginning to approach “neglect mullet”.

Steve raised his eyebrows in faux innocence, winced at the movement, and shook his head, in more faked nonchalance. “I was thinking about doing a seasonal butternut squash waffle, like we do the sweet-potato ones sometimes, but savory.”

 _Really?_ Clint thought to himself, but out loud he said, “Oh, that sounds fine: catch the pumpkin spice crowd off guard.” Lacking the subtlety to bring the conversation to _what the fuck happened to your face_ Clint shrugged and took over the register.

Natasha hitched her hip against the counter and tossed her hair to get his attention. The flicker of vibrant red in the corner of his vision drew his eye and he turned. She raised an eyebrow and directed her eyes towards Steve’s order up window. Clint gave her a helpless look, his forehead crinkled up. She gestured towards the window with her head. His eyebrows went up further and he shook his head hard.

“Excuse me?” a customer asked quietly. Clint spun away from Natasha before she could silently wrangle him into some sort of confrontation with his cook. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” the customer continued. It was Sir Fancypants, in his fancy pants. In a three-piece fancypants, as it were.

Clint just barely managed _not_ to greet him as “Mr. Sexybusiness”, but it was a much closer thing than he would have liked. “Hey, no, no problem. We were just—” Clint broke off and tried to think what _exactly_ he was going to say they were doing that made any sense. “Can I take your order?” he offered instead. Clint took his order, and there wasn’t much going on, so Clint tried conversation. “You’ve been in here before, right?”

“Yeah. You’re the owner — Clint?” Clint wracked his brains. _Shit shit shit, now he had to come up with this guy’s name. Shit_. “You’re a lot more awake than the last time I was in.” He seemed to sense Clint’s frantic cerebral flagellation and offered, “I’m Phil.”

Clint offered his hand, and shook. “Good to see you again.”

Clint turned his head and just barely caught Darcy’s voice saying, “—running an escort service back there.” He held up a finger with an apologetic expression and turned to corner Darcy before she could move on.

Natasha appeared derisive. Darcy had her hands up. “What?” she demanded. “I thought one of the Johns just got handsy or something.”

Clint blinked hard. The idea of Steve— just no.

“Why in god’s name did you think he was running an escort service out of the alley?” Clint asked.

“I dunno.” She rolled her eyes and ducked her head. She shrugged. “I saw him out there once all up in some guy’s business. Like, real close, but not like a fight, and I figured...” She shrugged again. “It’s not like he has a boyfriend or something, and he like, got some actual furniture so I figured, hey, money coming in?”

Clint and Natasha exchanged a look.

Steve dinged his little bell. “Order up.”  
\--  
“Hey, Clint, someone was asking for you earlier today.” Kate was wrist-deep in the espresso machine in an attempt to diagnose some problem only she had noticed.

“Yeah? What about?”

“Didn’t say, just asked for you and skulked off when I said you weren’t around. It was when you were doing the run down to Sam.” Wilson worked at a counseling center a few blocks away and had earned the right to order deliveries.

“Skulked?” Clint asked.

Kate shrugged, blassee. “He looked weird. Not like, good-weird.”

Clint frowned. “How else did he look?”

“Kinda gingery? A bit hillbilly or hipster or something.” Clint felt his hands go cold as his stomach slipped into his knees. “You know the guy?” Kate asked.

There were plenty of gingery hillbillies who could be looking for Clint. It was probably just—

Clint groaned and mashed his forehead into the counter. Natasha whacked his head with her bar towel and pointedly cleaned his face grease off of the surface.

Natasha kept her eyes on the countertop, but a flick of her perfectly black eyelashes told Clint her attention was all on him, awaiting an explanation. She was his perfect foil, in a lot of ways; her silence could crack him open more efficiently than any others’ words. She waited, and when he didn’t vomit forth words, she pulled him against her hip, squeezed their sides together, and kissed him on the temple.

“I got this terrible feeling it’s Barney,” he admitted, low and quiet.

“The dinosaur?” Kate asked, apparently catching only “Barney”.

“The brother,” Natasha replied.

“My brother,” Clint added.

“I thought you were an orphan,” Kate said with her usual tact and charm.

“That means I don’t have any parents, not ‘all my family is dead’.”

“Though some of us might wish they were,” Natasha practically growled.

Clint pinned Natasha with a sharp look. “Don’t even joke.”

Natasha had an alarming expression that Clint thought of as her bird-of-prey look. Looking into that expression was like staring into a void from which emotion could not crawl forth. It was like her eyes turned to hard gemstones, and he knew that if he had asked her, she would have made Barney disappear. Natasha was terrifying like that.

“Tasha,” he half-groaned. “He’s family.” She raised her eyebrow at him and favored the idea with a delicate snort of derision. “Whatever.”

“Family shouldn’t tie you up in anxious knots like he seems to do,” Natasha replied.

Kate banged the espresso group to knock loose the puck of grounds with more force than necessary. “Family is a fucking automatic anxiety generator. I don’t know what the fuck family you had.”

“I never had any family,” Natasha replied.

“Oh.” Kate swallowed any further retorts.

“But I know what it’s like to care for someone and if you care for someone you don’t tie them up in knots like some brothers seem to.”

“Look, if he comes again, see if you can get a phone number. Or better yet, come grab me, okay?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Kate replied.

Natasha gave him a long, appraising look.  
\--  
Darcy’s voice barked up the stairwell, perfectly piercing Clint’s nap. “Clint, someone here for you.”

Clint rolled off the side of his bed onto all fours, leapt upright, and flew down the stairs, nearly slipping on the landing and rolling down the final flight of steps. He burst through the back door of Irons and searched the shop for his brother, for Darcy, for the trouble that inevitably swam around his family. Nothing. Except.

“Mr. Fancyslacks,” Clint said dumbly. “Phil!” he amended, in an almost shout, in an attempt to drown out his own stupid. A flush of embarrassment splattered across Clint’s bare chest. He’d been in PJ pants and hadn’t put anything more appropriate on in his rush to head off his brother from getting into shit. And he said Fancyslacks out loud. “Aaw brain,” he moaned, and covered his eyes.

“You good, boss?” Darcy asked. She had been in the kitchen flirting with Steve. Or maybe needling him -- it was hard to tell.

“Yes, Darce, fine,” he said from behind the protective barrier of his hands.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Phil said. He had a little crinkle in his forehead that was equal part amused and confused.

Clint closed his eyes and shook his head. He took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, and blew it out hard in an attempt to clear his head. “No, it’s fine. Sorry to—” Clint gestured at his naked torso. “No, what do you need?” Clint was at a loss as to what Fancyslacks -- Phil -- could need from him, beyond waffles.

“Pepper Potts said she talked to you about me helping with a business plan for the restaurant?”

Clint stared for an additional moment. “Pepper-” he blinked. There was still cotton candy futzing up his brain and stuffed between his thoughts and his mouth. He blinked hard again. “Futz.”

“If now’s a bad time—” Phil began.

Clint crossed his arms over his chest so his nipples were covered. “I’m just gonna go get a shirt. I thought—” he shook his head. “Nevermind. I rushed out. I’ll go get a shirt.” He stumbled out the back door and up the stairs to his apartment. He wasn’t aware Phil had followed him until he was opening his apartment door and it didn’t slam back and try to whack him in the head like it usually did as soon as he had it open.

He stared at Phil, who had the door braced, his arm above Clint’s head, that same amused, quizzical expression on his face. He saw something in Clint’s own baffled expression, open bemusement closing off to embarrassment. “Was I not supposed to follow?” Phil asked.

“I was just—” Clint shook his head. “Nevermind. Come on in.” He searched through his bedsheets, looking for his t-shirt. The purple motif was coming back to bite him in the ass — purple on purple was hard to find. He rumbled disconsolately. Phil offered his t-shirt, almost shyly. It had been slung over the back of his couch. Clint glared at his clothing and struggled into it. He sat heavily on the foot of his bed and gestured towards the couch for Phil to sit. “Sorry I’m a mess. I was napping and I heard Darcy shouting.”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your nap?” Phil offered.

Clint waved off the apology. “I was expecting you were someone else, is all. I’m just sorry — this is all wrong.” Phil frowned. “Me, I’m all wrong. Look, can we start over?”

“From how far back?”

Clint was stupid as dumb when it came to people sometimes, but he could almost hear a hint of a flirt to Phil’s words. He squinted, trying to see if it was a genuine flirt or just something his still-asleep brain was coming up with on its own. Nope. Real flirt. “Maybe just from before when I ran into my business shirtless and confused.”

“Sure.” Phil stuck out his hand. “Phil Coulson, MBA.”

Clint shook. “Clint Barton, professional fuckup.”

“Did you call me Mr. Fancyslacks, earlier?”

“I thought we were going to forget about earlier.”

“Start over, maybe, forget about...” Phil’s eyes flicked to Clint’s pecs, the ridge of his hips his pajama pants didn’t cover when he was shirtless, and back to Clint’s face, “I’d prefer not to.”

Second time in ten minutes this guy had Clint lighting up like a tomato that swallowed some christmas lights. “So you and Pepper,” Clint said.

“Friends from before Stark,” Phil replied, emphasizing “friends”.

“Huh.” Clint chewed on that for a moment. “Did you know it was my place when you said you’d help with this business plan?”

It was Phil’s turn to blush. “I might have been aware which rising star waffle house in Midtown Pepper was referring to when she asked,” he admitted.

“Huh,” Clint repeated. “So look, I got the accounts together for the last few months -- revenue in and costs and everything, if you want to take a look.”

 

“Sure. That sounds great.”

Clint sent a silent prayer to the awkward angel of social niceties that Phil ignore the flirty sexual tension and that Clint was clearly a hot, steaming mess, and just help with the books.

“You know, a business plan is more than just showing that your business model works right now -- it’s planning for the future, identifying your markets, streamlining your product offerings, and marketing. Have you thought about any of those things?”

“Dude, I barely managed to get these books together in the week and a half Pepper gave me. You’re lucky I came down those stairs wearing _pants_.”

They both flushed red.

“Okay. That’s okay.” Phil did reassuring _really_ well. Clint felt like he could sink into a warm tub of that sort of reassurance. “That’s what this sort of thing is good for. Just because you don’t have plans now doesn’t mean you can’t make some.”

Clint ran his fingers through his hair, forcing it into disordered spikes. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Let’s do this.”  
\--  
“Waffalafel.” Kate said it while swiping her hand across the air like an old-fashioned marquee presenter.

“Bless you,” Clint responded.

“Like the garbanzo balls?” Steve asked. “I like those.”

Kate grinned and shook a garish box with Farsi writing on it and a photo of falafel which had probably been taken in the mid 1980s. Clint waved his hands and interrupted both of them. “No, stopit. No chatty Kathys distracting Steve from explaining what’s been going on with his alley John.” 

Steve choked on his spit and began huge, wracking coughs. “My _what_?!” he asked.

“Look, I don’t give a shit if you disappear a bit during the slow stretches provided you wash your hands afterwards, but Tasha—” Natasha shot a look at Clint that promised something nasty. Clint revised, “—I’m worried about you.”

Kate took the opportunity their uncomfortable personal conversation presented to scoot into the kitchen and put her boxed mix to a trial.

Steve had cleared his windpipe and was looking at Clint with a fond expression. It was tired, but sincere. “I’m fine, Clint.”

“Really? ‘Cause I’ve been not fine,” Clint huffed a self-deprecating laugh, “and I have a pretty good idea what it looks like.”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He smiled, small and sad.

Clint crossed his arms and hitched his hip against the counter. He settled in to wait Steve out.

“ _I’m_ fine,” He repeated. “You know how I was in the Army?” Clint nodded. Natasha had her attention split between bussing and monitoring their conversation. “I was in with a guy I grew up with. He was in because they’d pay for college.” Steve stared off into the middle distance, lost in memory. “I was in because...” He trailed off.

“You were young and stupid,” Clint suggested.

Steve snorted and nodded. “Yeah. I wanted to make a difference, and I thought that was the way I could do it. But Bucky and I were in at the same time, in the same unit. We had each other’s backs every day of my first two tours.” Steve drew in a big breath. Clint could hear the “and then” coming. “Our third tour we were in transit and his helicopter got hit with an RPG. They were—” Steve shook his head. “They just blew. I saw a couple guys go over the side and I could just— I was sure one of them was Buck, but they were so high, and... Our pilot got us out, but their copter... This was during a big Taliban push in the area, and we were losing ground everywhere. There’s no way he coulda survived. No way any of them survived, I thought.”

Natasha passed Clint a look that clearly said _holy shit_. This was the most they’d heard Steve talk about his time in the Army, ever. He’d occasionally let slip something about coffee, or the relative ease of dealing with lunch rush compared to live fire, but beyond that Steve was a blank, good-natured, all-American wall when it came to the Before times. 

“I thought,” Steve repeated, more to himself. “But it was the damndest thing, ya know? I was walking down the street and...” He shook his head. “It was the damndest thing.”

They stood in silence that stretched time long and slow. Clint and Natasha had their eyes down to give Steve a shred of privacy.

“Ya know I’d been seeing him everywhere; I’d been seeing every kinda person I’d lost on every stranger I walked by, but this...” 

“It was him.” Natasha said it quiet, and reverent.

Steve nodded. “Yeah.” He smiled a sad smile that still managed to convey a wry humor and a goddamned _gratefulness_ that was superhuman in its own right. “I followed him for a few blocks -- got sure it wasn’t my head playing with me. I did that once, ya know? Chased a lady a block and a half and scared the bejesus out of her because I thought she was a lieutenant I knew. I musta spooked him, though, ‘cause he disappeared. I was _sure_ and then poof.” He made a hand gesture to go along with the onomonopia. 

“He followed me for a while, I guess, and got the jump while I was emptying trash about two weeks ago.”

“Got the jump?” Clint asked.

Steve waved it off. “We tussled a bit, is all. He thought I was— I dunno.” Steve waved off Clint’s concern. “He’s not right in the head, right now, is all. PTSD or traumatic brain injury or something, is what I figure. He doesn’t remember me some days, but he still comes by — that kind of thing. He gets angry without really knowing why.”

“Can you get the VA involved, or something?”

Steve shook his head. “If you’ve been through the VA psych system you’d know why I haven’t tried.”

“You have?” Natasha asked. She almost sounded surprised.

Steve shrugged, his expression clearly saying “yeah, well”. “Whoever didn’t contact me when they found him screwed up bad enough, but whatever he went through... He’s back now, but someone’s got their hooks in him, I think: has his mind turned upside down.” Steve got quiet. “They’ve done things to him.”

“Anal things?” Clint asked.

Steve and Natasha both gave him unique looks that clearly both said, _what is wrong with you Barton?_

 

“He said something about hurting people, and it wasn’t ‘I’m afraid I’m going to’. I think someone is taking advantage of him.”  
\--  
“Baby brother.”

The words sent a hot-cold stab of adrenaline through Clint’s middle. He held still for a long moment, frozen in place before he whirled around. A familiar crooked-broken smile greeted him under a mop of auburn hair. Barney opened his arms wide and low, offering a hug. Only it didn’t feel like an offer; it felt like an obligation. It felt like as soon as he entered that embrace his brother’s arms would lock around him like the steel of handcuffs. Even so, Clint hopped the bar and stood to face his brother.

“Barn - it’s been a long time.”

Barney shook his opened arms a bit, and Clint went in for the hug. It felt wrong. It felt right, and that felt wrong.

“Good to see you,” Barney said.

“What do you need? Why are you here?”

Barney pulled back, an offended look on his face. “I can’t just come to visit by little brother? My only family?”

Clint huffed a laugh with no amusement in it. “Naw, no. It’s not like that, I just—”

“Aaw, c’mere.” Barney pulled him back in for a sideways hug, plucked up Clint’s cell phone held in his limp hand, and snapped a selfie of the two of them. “That’s the stuff,” Barney said, returning the phone with a big grin. He shook Clint a little bit, and it made Clint feel about eight years old and completely powerless, snugged tight against his brother’s hip. “They said this was your place when I came by earlier but I could hardly believe it. Redneck like you making it big in the Big Apple.”

“Barton, Darcy needs you in back,” Natasha barked. Her voice cut through to his core like a sharp beam of light in the fog. 

Kate swooped in to talk at Barney with a delighted shriek. “You’re Clint’s _brother_? Wow, it is so great to meet you!” The only reason Clint knew she was acting was because her voice _never_ reached those pitches in normal conversation. 

“Barton!” Natasha’s voice cracked like a whip, and he was heading towards the kitchen before he could suggest another action to his feet. Darcy was helping Steve with the waffle irons, and Natasha was tucked into an alcove out of sight of the restaurant.

“What do you need?” Clint asked, bewildered.

“What?” Darcy replied.

“Natasha said—”

“I just said that to get you by yourself for a minute.”

“What? Why? I have to go—”

Natasha pinned him to the wall with her forearm across his throat, and the weight of her slight body pressing him back. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed.

“Nothing’s wrong with me.” He pushed her roughly away. She stood back, her hands raised, with an expression that clearly communicated her disbelief. “Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” he growled.

“Something changed the moment you saw him. Has he got something on you?”

“What? Tash, no. He’s family.”

Her forehead knit together and her eyes widened like he’d just admitted Barney knew about the dead body in Clint’s yard. She stayed back from Clint, her hands still raised. “Don’t let him use that to drag you down,” she said, low and inflectionless. He started to speak but she interrupted him. “Promise me, Clint. You do what you can for him but do not let him pull you under with him.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Natasha shook her head like she knew him -- like she knew what he was thinking. Screw that. Clint walked out of the kitchen and straight into Barney, who had been in the process of forcing his way through Kate into the back. “Kit-Kat, what’s going on here?”

“Kit-Kat?” Barney said like Clint had given him a present. His eyes ran up and down Kate’s torso.

Clint grabbed Barney’s arm and spun him around; practically frogmarched his brother away from Kate. 

“So, Barn, what brings you here? Lets get some chow and tell me what’s been going on.”

“Naaw, I was just stopping in to—”

“Steve! Two screaming monkeys.”

The look Barney had given Kate had shaken loose some part of Clint that had been held hypnotized by his brother like a mouse in the eyes of a swaying snake. Being around his brother set off every kind of alarm Clint had — from the I’m going to make the wrong call, panic alarm to the golden-retriever like excited-happy-safe-obey alarm. Clint was an expert in identifying a Barton who wasn’t quite right for one reason or another, largely from seeing those looks in the mirror most days, and Barney had a look about him that was just... not right.

When he turned back to Barney from yelling out his order, his brother had a sardonic grin. ”Look at you, ordering big guys around.”

“It’s Steve’s job,” Clint replied, uncomfortable. Barney had obviously meant it as some sort of compliment, that he could order people around. The implications — that his brother enjoyed and admired a person’s abilities to bully or coerce others — made Clint’s skin squirm. He and Barney hadn’t seen each other in nearly five years, but it seemed that though time might lessen the constant sting of some wounds, it wouldn’t necessarily heal them right up good as new. The last time they met up had ended with Clint in jail (Clint escaping from jail, actually) and a kilo of something Barney had said was cocaine but which could have been baking powder for all Clint knew. It hadn’t been the worst way they’d parted company — that spot still, and would always, go to Silver Springs, Arkansas — but it was in the top three.

Clint didn’t like to think about it too much, but he had grown up a lot since the thing with the maybe-drugs, and even more since Silver Springs. He’d been so _dumb_ back then; he hadn’t even realized his brother had run off until they were discharging him from the hospital and handing him a bill and Barney was nowhere in sight. Now he was back for god-knows-why, and as much as Clint could taste the bad vibes in the air, he couldn’t give his family the cold shoulder he was starting to think might be deserved.

“Hey, space cadet, I’m talkin’ to you.”

Clint had spaced out and Barney had caught him at it.

“Sorry man. So what’s up? Why are you here?”

Barney shifted in his chair. Now that the token “I came here to see my little brother” protests were through, he would get down to business.

“I just had some stuff to do in New York and I was hoping to borrow some crash space for a few nights. Nothing big — just need a place to rest my head.”

Steve dropped the plates in front of the Bartons himself. He gave Clint a long, searching look. Clint shook his head just a bit, and picked up his fork and knife. Their waffles were piled high with banana slices and liberally coated in peanut butter and dribbles of honey. 

Clint focused on his waffle to avoid meeting Barney’s gaze. “Yeah, sure thing,” he said, mostly to his waffle. They ate in silence for a moment, but Clint could feel Barney’s satisfaction at being offered a bed at Clint’s, and it plucked at his attention like someone pulling out his arm hairs one by one. “So what stuff are you up to in town?” Clint asked, faux casual.

“Aaw, you know.” Barney waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “This and that,” he added, lending no confidence whatsoever to his prior statement.

Clint hunched a bit and moved closer to his brother. He spoke low, “Is it gonna be like last time?” Clint asked.

Barney made a derisive noise deep in his throat and squinted at Clint. “What? No. What’re you talking about?”

If Natasha hadn’t dragged him in back to get his head screwed on straight; if he hadn’t had the moment of clarity when Barney looked at Kate just the other side of wrong; if all of this hadn’t reminded Clint too much of Silver Springs, he never would have seen the way a tight anxiety scampered its way across Barney’s face. And it wouldn’t have been because Barney was such a good liar -- Bartons were pretty shit at obfuscation as a rule. It would have been because he wasn’t looking. Because he was trusting his brother -- his only family -- wouldn’t make the same mistakes that had almost cost Clint his life and his freedom once before.

“All you need’s a place to crash?” Clint asked.

“Yeah, little brother. Just a place to rest my bones.”  
\--  
“Is he just gonna sit there all afternoon?” Kate asked.

“Apparently,” Natasha replied. She had a silent, murderous air about her which kept Barney’s eyes from wandering towards her. Kate had no such luck.

“As long as he doesn’t follow me out.”

“I’ll be sure he doesn’t.” Natasha narrowed her eyes at Clint who pantomimed “Sorry”.

It was Friday night, which meant live music, which meant it would be an extra long haul to closing.  
\--  
Sam Wilson. Sam. Clint stared dully through the front window at Sam where his patient tapping made a soothing rhythm.

“You gonna let me in, or just stare at me?”

“You have a key,” Clint grumbled. Stark’s lease probably had something to say about the fact that a number of people, not-managers and not-Clint, had keys to Irons. Sam rolled his eyes at Clint and dug through his pockets for the key.

“What’s up, man?” Sam asked. He slung his backpack into the nook Kate would use later in the morning, and flipped up the walk-through on the bar. The shrieking groan of the coffee grinder startled Clint upright from his slump against the bar top. Sam raised an eyebrow at his startle. Clint shot back a squinty, hopefully-murderous look. Sam seemed unaffected and pointed towards the back door and Clint’s apartment. “Go up to bed. Steve’ll be in in a few, and,” he leaned backwards to glance at the schedule, “Darce and Tash have it covered through mid-afternoon.”

Clint made a grinding noise, not unlike a computer when asked to do something it didn’t particularly like, and slumped back against the countertop. Sam slammed the coffee baskets into the bun-o-matics, flipped the waffle irons on so they’d be warm by the time Steve got in, and began making his own coffee. Sam’s frou-frou coffee drinks were legendary. Sam was the reason that Clint knew how to make homemade nut syrups. Sam didn’t actually, officially work at Irons.

“You wanna talk about it?” Sam asked.

“My brother’s in town,” Clint said finally.

Sam swirled some chocolate syrup on the top of his drink. “Family can be stressful,” he said, not-at-all judgey.

“Yeah.”

“You want some coffee, or...”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to bed.” Clint’s late-night cleaning binge followed by insomnia followed by staring at the wall in a loop of “the fuck am I gonna do” “the fuck does he want from me” and “I can’t do this again” going through his mind had cleaned out whatever minimal reserves he had.

“You need me to tuck you in?” Sam asked, cheeky. Clint gave him a double middle finger and slouched his way up to his own apartment and his own bed. 

Barney had left via the fire escape at some point between midnight and wheneverthefuck it was, but when Clint curled around his pillow, his hand hit something heavy and cold and metal. Clint jumped out of bed and hurled his pillow across the room. “Jesus fuck Barney!” Clint shouted to nobody in particular. A loaded revolver had been tucked under the pillow like an offering for the handgun fairy. Clint picked it up gingerly and emptied the rounds into the trash, tossed the unloaded gun into the sink, and crawled back into bed.  
\--  
Clint was working in the early evening when Barney showed up again. He had slept poorly through to the afternoon. His dreams has been a tangled net of anxiety. In his dream, he’d been a kid in the circus again, scrawny and early on when he’d been raw talent and no finesse; when missing shots had been something that actually happened, and earned at least a good wallop.

He couldn’t get his bow strung properly. Every time he tried to brace it across his hip and pull the arm around so the loop of bowstring would slot into place it would slip from his numbed fingers, or he was unable to bend the bow arm enough. In the dream, he’d finally found a stringer and got the bow strung, but then he spent years of dreamtime trying to get the butts the right distance from his line, and then the arrows kept breaking and going laughably wide. With every failure or roadblock his anxiety and his positivity that he would fail increased. Dream-Clint was certain he would catch the mother of all beatings from Trickshot. Perversely, with each defeat he became more certain that all he had to do was make a single good shot. It would make everything alright if he could just hit dead center, just the once. He couldn’t stop trying, and he couldn’t stop crying, and by the end he was whimpering “just let me make one; I can do it”, while knowing he wouldn’t.

When he woke out of the nightmare, Clint felt as though Satan himself had gotten a grip on his heart and was forcing it to beat to his own rhythm. He went to get a drink of water from the sink and spent a good long while staring down at the revolver in his sink. He poured his half-full glass of water over the gun and pulled the liner out of his wastebasket where he’d emptied the bullets. He walked out to the dumpster and disposed of the ammunition more thoroughly before reluctantly readying himself for the day/evening.

Barney was wearing Clint’s sweatshirt -- the one Natasha had gotten for him -- and a baseball cap.

“I got the register,” Natasha told him. He’d told her about the gun because of course he told her. No matter what, she’d have his back.

Clint nodded, short and jerky, and flipped up the walkthrough to exit. Some time between waking and that moment, Clint had gotten _mad_. Not pissed, or hurt, just flat, toneless _mad_.

He grabbed Barney by the scruff of the hoodie and crowded him into the stairwell leading up to his apartment. Barney held his hands up in surrender at the rough handling. “Hey, hey, what’s this about?”

“You took my sweatshirt and you got it fucking filthy,” Clint replied, with a growl of restrained menace. It wasn’t his biggest bone to pick, but it was the one that rose to the top at that moment. He was cornered and he felt helpless and that just made him more mad.

“I needed something to wear while I washed my stuff.” Barney smiled at him, wheedlingly. Apparently his brother had noticed the shift in Clint’s mood and handling of him and was taking a softer tack. “You didn’t want me to smell, right?”

“Yeah, okay,” Clint acquiesced, “Just—” He stopped himself from saying, “not that”. Letting his brother know how much the simple present from Natasha meant to him was giving Barney too big a piece of himself. “—didn’t think you’d crawl through a subway on your belly,” he substituted instead.

“Hey; Bartons have never been afraid to get dirty.”

“You’re gonna tell me what _exactly_ the business you’re doing in town is, or you’re getting out of my place right this minute.” Clint emphasized the statement with a shove towards his apartment where they could talk without being interrupted.

Barney stumbled. “Easy, little brother. I thought you got enough wallops from dad; didn’t think you’d be handing out your own.”

The words hit Clint in the stomach, heavy and cold. “I’m— I wasn’t—” he protested, suddenly on the defensive.

“I know you didn’t mean to be like that.” Barney slung his arm around Clint’s shoulders. “It just happens sometimes. I get it.”

“No, Barn.” Clint shoved Barney away from him. “What the fuck kind of business deal do you need a fucking handgun for?”

“Oh, you found that.”

“Yeah I fucking found it. It was under my fucking pillow. If you were trying to fucking hide it you sure coulda done a better job of it. Fuck.” Clint ran his hand through his hair. “Futz,” he repeated more quietly.

“It’s just for protection; the world can be a freaky place, little bro. But I didn’t even need it today so I left it here, see?”

Probably 90% of Clint doubted that was why Barney had left the gun there. But the mewling, apologist 10% rushed to tell Clint how reasonable that was. Clint narrowed his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t want that shit in my house, and I don’t want you staying here anymore.”

“What? You said I could—”

“There’s a Y down the street—”

“I know there’s a fucking Y down the—”

“—and I don’t know— wait. How do you know there’s a Y down the street?”

“‘cause I got kicked out of there day before yesterday!” Barney shouted. “Fucking prejudiced low-life do-gooder fucks. And now my own brother wants to kick me to the curb right when I could get everything back on track.”

“Back on track?”

“Nevermind. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Barney.” It came out sharper than Clint meant. “I want to— I’m trying to help. You gotta give me something, though.”

“I owe a guy from way back, is all, and I can pay him back and then some just with doing a bit of driving for him and I’ve been doing that is all.”

“So why do you need a gun?”

“The road can be dangerous and what he’s got me driving is worth real cash.”

“Is it drugs?”

“No it’s not drugs.”

“Is it stolen shit?”

“Fuck, Clint!” Barney rubbed his hair into matching spikes. “I have it covered, okay?”  
\--  
“One more night.” Natasha repeated.

“Yeah. He was pretty pissed about the gun.”

Natasha shrugged, clearly expressing her indifference to Barney’s feelings. “I’m turning the gun in to Rhodey. He’ll be able to see if it’s been used in any crimes.”

“Yes. Fine. Good.” Rhodey was a detective, and able to take care of that sort of thing, and willing to take their lead if they asked him to not pry into where they got the gun. Provided it hadn’t been used in a murder or something. “Fine!” he repeated.

“Your three-piece-suit was by while you were napping, by the way. I figured one sleep-rumpled viewing was enough for his blood pressure, but he left this for you.”

It was a folio with “Irons” on the front and a type-block stylized Belgian waffle logo that Steve had made months ago. The inside was a rough business plan with blank pages where information would be filled in later.

“Did you not tell me about this until now because you knew Barn would be by and fuck things up and this would cheer me up?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the best, Tasha.” Natasha allowed herself to be folded into a hug.  
\--  
“Where’s Steve?” Clint eyed the increasing number of customers milling about waiting for their orders, and the distinct lack of orders coming out of the kitchen.

“I think Steve spotted the Army raccoon while he was doing a trash run.” Kate slung a few coffee orders across the bar to cull the herd of patrons.

“Is that what we’re calling this guy now?”

“It’s better than Steve’s Trash John,” Kate replied.

Clint let out a breath and a low groan. “Okay, executive decision: Steve is not allowed to do the trash anymore.”

Kate groaned and Darcy protested, “But he’s so good at it with his manly muscles.”

“Yes, and then he gets distracted or cold-cocked by his trash raccoon.”

“Army raccoon,” Kate corrected.

“Whatever.” Clint tied on an apron and stomped into the kitchen to make the orders Steve was neglecting. Two Noble Pigs, a gluten-free Graceland, and a French Connection later, Steve backed in through the service entrance. “It’s about time, Rogers,” Clint scolded.

Steve held up a hand, and backed in further with his very own army raccoon. It was immediately apparent why the girls called him that; his eyes were dark and bruised to the point that Clint wouldn’t have been surprised if he was wearing several days’ of eye makeup, and he looked like he had been a serious dumpster diver very recently.

“Aaw, Steve, he can’t be in—” Clint was interrupted by the Armycoon lunging at him, and popping him one in the chin. Clint responded on automatic; boxed the other man’s ears and jumped at him to put him in a choke hold. His apron caught on an industrial waffle iron and jerked him to a stop, and then broke, leaving him to stumble over the pile of Bucky and Steve that formed on the floor when Steve tried to protect and subdue his friend.

“Oh, my god. You’re not him. I’m so sorry,” Bucky repeated, trembling beneath Steve.

“Get him _outta my kitchen_ ,” Clint roared. “Steve: come back when you can actually be a help.” He turned away from them without waiting to watch them go. Clint turned and rummaged through the day fridge for a half-defrosted shrink-wrapped chicken breast which he clamped between his jaw and his shoulder in anticipation of a bruise, and went back to filling orders.  
\--  
By late evening, Clint had a swollen jaw, an aching head, and a foul mood. Natasha had stayed past her shift time, seated at an unused table and doing nothing in particular, but doing it menacingly. After the upset with Steve, and anticipating something going on with Barney, he’d sent Darcy home, but Kate had refused to go.

“I don’t need babysitters,” Clint mumbled sourly.

“Evidence suggests otherwise, flutterbutt,” Kate returned. She had her Asp baton in the thigh pocket of her pants right where her hand could grab it at a moment’s notice. Clint was reasonably certain that Natasha had a switchblade up her sleeve, the sort usually reserved to gang fights outside Liverpool bars.

“Careful, Kateybug, I might take offense.”

“Your face might take offense,” Kate replied, and they made faces at each other while they closed and cleaned up.

Barney tap-tap-tapped against the back door to be let in. Kate and Natasha exchanged a look, and almost spitefully Clint went to open it for his brother.

“Hey, little bro,” Barney greeted, as though their argument and Clint’s suspicion and Barney’s comparisons to his asshole of a father had never happened. “You got a tarp or something?”

“What?”

“Or a big drop cloth or something. Gotta cover up the boss’ ride.” Barney thumbed at a panel truck advertizing some type of pasta product on the side. Clint stared up at the truck, and then at Barney, and back at the truck.

“I don’t think I have anything that big,” Clint confessed.

“What about your bedsheets? We could just drape those down the side and it’d be covered.”

Clint opened his mouth, but so many different reasons why that was a not great idea occurred to him that they caused a traffic jam on the way to his tongue and he was struck dumb. Barney was already inside presumably stealing his bedclothes, before Clint could get out, “No, what?”

Kate sidled out to watch the operation involving Barney, eventually with Clint’s help, trying to get the sheets draped so they wouldn’t fly off in the persistent wind tunnel of the alleyway.

It was dark, and cold, and threatening rain, and everything was terrible. They eventually managed it. “So that’s it?” Clint asked. “Tomorrow morning you drive out and this is all good?”

“Yeah. Guys are gonna come by tonight and load ‘er up, I get a good night’s sleep, and I’m outta your hair before opening.”

Clint nodded, still ill at ease. Kate looked like she patently didn’t believe him. Barney went upstairs to bed and left Clint, Kate, and Natasha to stare at one another in the cafe.

“We should see what he’s hauling.” Kate glanced between Natasha and Clint. “What? I know you both were thinking it.”

“No can do. He said they’re dropping it off tonight.”

“Okay, so we wait up and watch and see what he’s hauling.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow in a manner which translated to _that’s not a bad idea_.

“Yeah. Okay.”  
\--  
Clint had wanted a drink, or something to settle his not-at-all sleepy mind, but the spectre of his alcoholic, punch-happy dad was still looming over him with Barney’s words, so he refrained and stewed in his own juices. Natasha took out her switchblade and sharpened it against something she’d had in her pocket.

Around 4:30, Kate’s head swiveled towards the back door. Natasha cocked her head as though listening. Clint looked for movement through the block-glass window in the kitchen -- his hearing was awful. Kate gestured with her head. Clint nodded, stood, and scooted to the back door, quick and quiet. That close he could hear the thudding slam of car doors, the rattling roll of the panel truck’s rear hatch getting pulled open. All of the sounds wouldn’t be amiss in the twilight hours when resturants received deliveries and the FedEx trucks were just starting to stir.

There were quiet voices, and a muffled repetition of “Bro” and some instructions Clint couldn’t make out. Grunts of effort, and thuds. Clint peeked through the rear door window and stared into the darkness. The lights of Irons were down low and far enough back that the shadow of his silhouette would be invisible, and Clint stared his fill. He felt something ugly and violent uncurl within his gut and race like fire up his brainstem. He went for the stairs to his apartment, only pausing long enough to hiss, “Stay there,” to Natasha and Kate.

Upstairs was dark and Barney was snoring in his bed, the throw from the couch pulled over his shoulders but leaving his ass exposed. Clint took ahold of the throw and yanked it off his brother, braced himself and shoved Barney off his bed. Barney shouted in surprise and outrage at the sneak attack.

“What are you hauling, Barney?” Clint asked, quiet but harsh.

“Wha—”

“What are you _hauling_?”

Barney had his arms up to cover his head, his ass bare and pale in the low light, his face scruffy and oh-so familiar. “I don’t know!” Barney cried. “I just drive!”

Clint was about to punch his brother -- he felt his fist clench, his elbow cock back, his shoulder tense and engage, and his core muscles tighten to make sure the blow was devastating. “What are you hauling? _TELL ME_!”

“I don’t fucking know!” Barney shouted back, both of them giving up on a pretext of stealth or quiet. “I told you I don’t fucking know!”

The sounds outside changed slightly -- more talking, and a bit louder, and Clint felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “It’s girls, Barn. You’re hauling girls you dumb fuck.” There was a shout from outside -- surprise and outrage. Clint and Barney’s eyes met, and as one they pelted down the stairs. Natasha and Kate were gone, the back door was open... it wasn’t difficult to guess what was going on. Clint grabbed the fire extinguished by the back door and ran outside.

There were somewhere between five and eight guys out back, one of them already on the ground with a broken nose from Kate’s Asp. A pair of unconscious women had been dropped in the process of loading. Another dozen were already in the back of Barney’s truck, stacked like wood. Kate herself was down and taking a good kicking from guys two and three. Natasha was nowhere to be seen, and guy four was looking around, panicked, with a gun out pointed towards the end of the alleyway. Guys five, six, and, oh hello seven, were just getting out of the two SUVs which blocked in the other end of the alley. 

Clint charged guys two and three, blocked a punch with the metal of the fire extinguisher, and jabbed out high with the weapon/safety equipment. Guy two was stunned, but guy three took advantage of the high shot to get him one right into Clint’s solar plexus and knocked the wind from him.

Clint swung out wildly as he lost his balance and landed half on Kate. Barney was somewhere in the fray, grunting and cursing, and unable to back down even though it probably meant the end of whatever deal he’d made that had gotten him into this whole situation to begin with.

As suddenly as the scuffle had started, everything ground to a halt with a man’s shout. Something in Russian, or maybe something Slavic had everyone stopped.

Natasha’s voice; that was definitely Russian. Clint rolled over and clutched his fire extinguisher to help lever himself up. Natasha had her switchblade out and it rested almost gently against the neck of guy seven, who was apparently Guy in Charge. Natasha issued orders. The human traffickers loaded their downed fellows into their SUVs, and at a shout from Natasha’s captive, drove off.

“Go get your duct tape,” Natasha said. Kate groaned, which was good to hear. Barney was half-way under the truck, and kinda rolling back and forth like he’d been hit in the balls.

“What, we’re gonna kidnap the kidnappers?”

“Just do it, Clint.”

Against his -- well, it couldn’t exactly be called good judgement -- less bad judgement, Clint got the duct tape, and Natasha taped the guy up like a shitty plumber’s repair job. She even went so far as to tape his hands, palms pressed together.

“Okay, so now I’m accessory to like, all kinds of kidnapping.”

“I’m restraining him for his own safety. This man is clearly suicidal.”

“Hey you, fuck you bitch,” guy seven said.

Natasha backhanded him almost casually. “I think you are well aware of what I do to men who call me that,” she said.

“Who do you think you are, you?” guy seven asked, all bravado.

Natasha’s eyes went bird-of-prey flat, and she leaned towards his ear. Whatever she whispered to him, Clint had never seen a face drain of color that quickly.

“Call Rhodes and Hill and tell them to get an ambulance,” Natasha told him. Clint nodded, dumbly.

“What about Barney?” Clint asked. When he looked around for the other man though, he had vanished.  
\--  
Rhodey called in Melinda May, an ER doctor who could patch them up while Rhodey and Hill took their statements. May arrived with a kit half as big as herself over one shoulder and a set, grim look. Kate and Clint had matching cracked ribs. Natasha earned a butterfly bandage over her eyebrow, and Kate was going to be one ugly bruise come morning.

The women in the truck had been given something strong enough to put a horse under, and had all been rushed to hospitals, their identities to be sorted out when they were no longer in danger of drug-induced comas. Natasha remained characteristically mum about what precisely she had said to their mob boss friend, and what she had done with said mob boss friend once she’d dragged him out of their alleyway on a shipping dolly before the cops had arrived. Clint assumed it wasn’t “quietly murder an unarmed man in restraints” but that was mostly because he didn’t want to think about how she disposed of the body so quickly. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that Natasha wouldn’t do something like murder an unarmed man in restraints, if she thought it was necessary.

Natasha was scary as fuck.

Clint felt ten kinds of stupid. Kate looked thrashed, and he felt ten more kinds of stupid for getting her into this.

“Quit feeling bad for me, Clint.”

“Katydid,” Clint groaned.

“I was here ‘cause I wanted to be: we’re partners.”

Clint nodded. Kate reached around his shoulders and snugged them close together. They both winced, but it felt right, even with the sharp strike of pain through the quiet moment.  
\--  
Natasha put Kate and Clint to bed together. She, being superhuman and, lest anybody forget, terrifying as fuck, did not need sleep. Natasha draped a throw and then a quilt she found somewhere over the top of the two of them in Clint’s bed. They were too tired and emotionally exhausted to protest and were out within minutes.

Given their mirrored cracked ribs, they migrated to their sides, and slept, asses pressed together. It was strangely comforting, and as far from sexual as it was possible to be.

Late in the afternoon when Darcy pulled their blankets away, Kate and Clint made similar whining mews of protest. Their eyes scrunched up and they shrank closer to one another against the cold and awareness.

“Get up!” Darcy scolded. “If you don’t get up now you’ll both become nocturnal night creatures. And Phil is here.”

Clint rolled upright so quickly he rolled off the edge of his bed with an undignified yelp. Kate immediately started laughing, though that trailed off into a groan as her ribs made themselves known.

Darcy hustled over to where Clint had fallen and helped him up with an oof of effort.

“This isn’t necessary, really. I said I could wait.” Phil was staring, befuddled and uncomfortable, from the front doorway.

“Nope. He didn’t hire me for my soft touch,” Darcy said. She ruffled Clint’s hair affectionately and dug through the couch cushions for a sweater.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Phil added with a meaningful glance between Clint and Kate.

“Oh, Jesus no,” Kate said. “No no. No. We are not at all fucking. Not even a little bit. Tell him, boss.”

“Eew,” Clint replied.

“I didn’t want to presume about your orientation,” Phil put in.

“Oh, no, guys, girls, I love all of that, but eew. No. Katie-kate? She’s about twelve years old. No.”

Phil frowned but nodded. “Okay.”

Darcy got Clint into a sweater and put a mug of coffee in one hand and a pair of painkillers in his other before she slapped him on the butt to get him moving towards Phil. She scurried back out to the abandoned register downstairs.

“I mean.” Clint paused. “I don’t know what I mean,” he admitted.

“Okay,” Phil repeated.

They made dopey eyes at one another for a long moment. Phil was tie-less and had the first button of his shirt undone, which dragged Clint’s eyes downwards. Clint licked his lips.

“Oh my god, kill me,” Kate groaned, and pressed a pillow firmly over her face.

They both glanced at Kate, and Clint got a mischievous look in his eyes. “Are you here about something in... particular?” he asked.

Phil got a self-conscious little smirk like he was a bit uncomfortable but liking it. “As a matter of fact I had come to look over the plan I’d left with you.” Clint looked at Phil and tallied up the half-flirts and meaningful looks and how damned much he wanted to peel Phil’s suit off and lick every square inch of him, and thought _fuck it_.

“Oh.” He dropped his eyes, stepped in a bit closer, and looked at Phil through his eyelashes coy as you please. “I was hoping it was about something of a more personal nature.” His voice dropped in timbre.

Kate groaned from the bed.

“I wouldn’t be averse to something of a more personal nature. I would be very un-averse, in fact.” He shook the cuffs of his suit out and smirked that uncomfortable, pleased smirk. “Perhaps after we’ve had a chance to get business out of the way?”

The dopey grin that Clint gave to Phil seemed like adequate response, but he nodded jerkily just in case he wasn’t clear enough. “Yeah. Definitely.” They grinned at each other like idiots.

“Get the fuck out,” Kate moaned.  
\--  
Clint stood outside Steve’s apartment with a takeout container, looking awkward as hell through the peep hole. Steve opened the door. “Clint,” he greeted.

“Yeeah,” Clint agreed. Steve stood aside and gestured for Clint to enter.

“Buck’s asleep -- I think he has a cold or something, so maybe keep it quiet?” Steve suggested.

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” Clint offered the takeout container. “Look I’m sorry. About the yelling and all that.”

Clint’s jaw still had a bruise on it from Bucky’s wild blow. “Buck was sorry about the... face. He wanted to come apologize but he hasn’t been feeling well and I didn’t—” Steve clamped his mouth shut, his eyes pleading.

“No, I get it.” Clint did get it now that he’d had a few days to calm down and have Natasha and his love-Kate relationship giving him those _looks_. He wasn’t going to tell Steve that maybe he had been afraid, just a bit, that his shouting and anger had chased his friend and trusted employee away for good. Steve didn’t need to know the depths of his insecurities, even though the other man could probably guess them just by looking.

“Do you wanna...” Steve gestured at the couch and armchair which looked shiny new.

Clint sat. Steve sat as well and flipped open the takeout container. He began eating the waffle strips with his fingers. They sat in silence for a few long moments and Clint twiddled his thumbs -- actually, legitimately twiddled his thumbs. He looked around the apartment, decorated primarily with Steve’s little cartoons and sketches. He tried not to make eye contact with the small frame filled with army medals but he did make eye contact with a picture on the mantle, of Steve, and the army raccoon -- Bucky. They both looked so much younger, and Bucky had Steve in a headlock.

“Were you guys... That is, did you... I mean, obviously you were close, but were you ever...”

“Together?” Steve asked. Clint nodded. Steve got this wistful look, put down the strip of waffle he’d been considering. “I wish we woulda been, but,” he shook his head no.

“Was he not into that kind of thing, or—”

Steve barked a laugh. “Buck would wine and dine and screw anything willing that wasn’t actively trying to kill him. No— I was just too chicken shit to do anything. I think I was always afraid if we were together like that he would move on from me like he did with all the rest.”

“Oh. Well. Like I said, I’m real sorry I yelled at the both of you. That was outta line, and if you can, you know, we could use you back at work.”

“No hard feelings. You did what any normal fella woulda done after getting a knuckle sandwich outta nowhere.”

Clint wondered for the thousandth millionth time if his reaction had been “normal”. He doubted your average non-fucked-up man on the street would go right for the throat like a dangerous animal. He suspected not. The familiar terror of turning into his dad sent a shot of anxiety through his chest. “You’re sounding more and more Brooklyn since he’s been back, didja know?”

“And you’re sounding like an Iowa boy since your brother’s been back in town.”

Clint scrubbed the back of his head. “Aaw, shucks,” he said in an exaggerated country drawl.

“Speaking of, do you happen to have a picture of him?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was talking with Buck and he kept saying how’s he’d got confused ‘cause you looked like one of the people he’d been sent out to scare. It got me thinking about how your brother was into some stuff that was less than above board, and how alike you two looked.”

“Huh. You wanna show him a pic of Barney and see if that was him?”

Steve nodded. Clint looked through his phone for the picture Barney had snapped of the both of them, and messaged it to Steve. He was great at phones.

“And hey, listen. I’m really sorry about disappearing. This was just... important.”

“Naaw, man, I get it. I get it. Come back when you can. Sooner rather than later.” Clint offered his hand, and Steve took it and pulled him into a bro-hug.  
\--  
“So, Fancyslacks,” Kate said.

Clint nodded, took a long pull of his coffee, and nodded once more.

“He’s old,” she commented. Clint got ready to object but Kate held up her hand. “So are you, so it works I guess.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They sat in silence, side by side on the bar top.

“I’m sorry your brother was a douchebag,” Kate said at last.

Clint’s head dropped forward. Kate reached out and pulled him to her side with only moderate pain from both of them. She hugged him sideways, and in every way the same action had felt wrong, coming from Barney, it felt right coming from Kate. It wasn’t that he knew she would protect him and make anything better, or that she was a shelter from the world, or even that she was there to comfort him and make him feel better. Kate was there with him because she wanted to be, and somehow because of that, it made everything a little less impossible. She’d fight and she’d take a kicking right along side him, and never be less and never push him down to be more herself.

He leaned as far over as he could, stretched out his arm, and dragged the Irons business plan folder over towards them. He flopped it open in his lap. “Kate? You ever think of owning a business?”

She gave him an incredulous look.

“Because I’ve been thinking, and I don’t know if you have the capital or the interest, but I’ve been thinking I could use a partner in this. It seems like maybe the two of us could work out to be one whole business person and one whole whatever the hell we are otherwise.”

Her incredulous look turned thoughtful. He scooted the folder over so it lay across both their thighs. She made a thoughtful noise and tipped her head. Clint tipped his in as well, and their temples met gently and rested together as they both read.


End file.
